A day before the deadline to register SIM cards expire, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) said Monday that there is a high chance that registration could be extended.

Asked on dzRH if the April 26 deadline could be extended, Information and Technology Secretary Ivan Uy said: “There is a higher than 50 percent chance. There is hope.”

As of April 23, only 82, 845, 397 or 49.31 percent of around 160 million SIM cards have been registered, the DICT said.

Uy said the DICT will announce on Tuesday if SIM card registration will be extended.

“It should be (final) since that’s the deadline. But we convened with the telcos and stakeholders. According to the reports, some of our countrymen could not register for different reasons. So we are going to consolidate the reports and tomorrow we will have a final meeting. That’s when we’ll announce if there is an extension and how long the extension will be,” Uy said.“We also want this SIM card registration to be finished so we can get rid of the scammers,” he said.

Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla said a Cabinet cluster would be meeting on Tuesday to discuss issues related to SIM card registration law.

In a press briefing, Remulla said it is up to people to comply with the law which has been in place since December.

“We have to talk about the SIM card registration problem. But my view there is the law was there six months ago. It was really up to them to follow the law,” Remulla said.

“There will be a lot of repercussions but the telco companies should not make it an opportunistic event. They should be fair to all,” he added.

Telecom companies had appealed to the DICT to extend the deadline to 120 days more, as provided in the law.

However, the DICT in an advisory denied their request and reminded the public that failing to register would result in the deactivation of a user’s SIM.

Jaspearl Tan/DMS